Method or Madness? A New Biography of al-Hakim

MS

The Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ruled from his beautiful palace in Cairo from 996-1021 A.D. Fatimid caliphs were not just counter caliphs to the Abbasids (a political claim). They understood themselves to be heirs of the spiritual leadership passed from Muhammad to ‘Ali. For the Isma’ili branch of Shi’i Islam, of which the Fatimid dynasty was the an expression, al-Hakim was absolute ruler and inspired spiritual authority. The empire ruled by al-Hakim ranged from Morocco across North Africa, including all of Egypt, and then stretched to the Hijaz in Arabia and the eastern Mediterranean coast that now includes Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. We should even throw in the island of Sicily.

The biography by Paul E. Walker is easily the most complete and thoughtful account of the life of al-Hakim.. and it needs just such a treatment because his life was anything but ordinary and expected. In fact, you just don’t get much more eccentric than al-Hakim.. or perhaps crazy. He left a wonderful image of his eccentricity embedded in the cityscape of Cairo. The photo at the start of this post is of one of the two minarets standing at corners of the mosque that bears his name. The minarets are lovely, but at some point al-Hakim ordered that they be covered up with a square battlement. The minarets can be examined underneath their coverings, but it remains a mystery why he ordered these two minarets walled up.

Walker follows the chronicle of al-Maqrizi through the years of his reign, and this account by by al-Maqrizi pushes to the front the various rules implemented by al-Hakim: he banned several popular foods from being consumed, banned the consumption of alcoholic drinks, put in place tight restrictions on the public movement of women (banming the sale of women’s footwear!), inaugurated a program of tearing down churches and synogogues (including destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem), and was flippant in his use of capital punishment against those who disappointed him. Matching these rules are the seemingly random repeals of his rules. One year he’s instituting the cursing of the successors to Muhammad (revered by Sunnis).. and the next year he’s punishing anyone who carries out this cursing. One year churches are being torn down, the next he’s giving permission to build them. Walker’s decision early in the biography to present the chronicle with its year by year changes lets us see just how contradictory and mercurial al-Hakim can appear.

This chronicle of his eccentric deeds is the essential foil for this biography. Much of our information about al-Hakim comes from this chronicle by 15th century historian al-Maqrizi, who in turn preserved sections from an earlier source compiled by al-Musabbihi (which reached 26,000 pages!). This vast source is now mostly lost, but thanks to al-Maqrizi and his industrious itemizing of the events into a chronological flow, we have a decent portrait of the events in the reign of al-Hakim. It becomes evident, however, that the chonological arrangement of the material does no favors to al-Hakim. A bald list of his actions, one after another, is bound to make him look crazy. There is nothing like “thick description” in the list of the chronicle, and if ever anyone was in need to that, it is al-Hakim. Walker’s work as a biographer is to try to understand what might be driving these by turns contradictory and senseless actions. Is there an ordering logic behind them? There’s enough evidence of rationality in al-Hakim (his lifelong support of the sciences and learning) and from his personal popularity among the people (renowned to be generous) that it’s not out of the question that he was pursuing a deeper game than appears at first read.

From the beginning there was a group of apologists for al-Hakim, both committed Isma’ilis and another group that became the Druze. These voices are lost in the chronicle format, and in the hostility to the Fatimids that is present throughout later historical works. Yet for these believers, the actions of al-Hakim evidently made some sense.. or at least pointed to something important. The value of this biography is that Walker makes vivid this spiritual interpretation of al-Hakim’s actions. The idea is to ask, “how can we understand these actions not as the works of a crazy ruler, but as the actions of someone motivated by an idealistic vision of his own role in history and the spiritual world.” This is exactly what we might hope for from Walker, who has written extensively on the philosophical of various Isma’ili thinkers.

By the end of the biography al-Hakim hasn’t been vindicated, but we understand how he was a magnetic ruler. The very eccentricity of his actions cemented for some a belief in his representation of the divine. Walker reviews an argument about the imamate by the Isma’ili writer al-Naysaburi:

Therefore to judge him and his actions by the standard of other human beings, even the most exalted among them, is bound, he says, to lead to confusion. One possible reaction would be to reject his authority. But those who see what he does in a true light will understand, he continues, that al-Hakim’s commands and prohibitions, his giving and his taking away, ought to be compared with the acts of God. He is thus not human in any ordinary sense. [180]

This makes a certain level of sense if we think about the acts of God in the natural world, which on their face are inscrutable and violent. Al-Hakim, it’s argued, deserves some of the same latitude for mysterious action as God. That’s clearly a rationalized response to the actions of al-Hakim. Yet his inscrutable actions were so effective that some became convinced of the literal divinity of al-Hakim. More orthodox Isma’ilis denied this talk of divinity, but their exalted view of the office of Imam made them susceptible to similar views about al-Hakim’s perfect representation of the divine will. Walker does marvels with finding in Fatimid theological discussions of the Imamate intimations of the lively questions that abounded during the reign of al-Hakim. (I’m curious whether there’s evidence from other historic regimes with a strong ideology of the ruler that eccentric actions actually confirm his reputation.)

The Fatimids deserve more attention, if for no other reason than that they present a lively example as to how the development of Islam could have gone in any number of different directions. The foundation of Cairo in 969 A.D. by the Fatimids, and their construction of a grand palace compound there, points to a cityscape oriented around a living religious authority.. closer to the Vatican City than the more fragmented city of Cairo under the Mamluks. When the Isma’ili pilgrim Nasir-i Khusraw visits Cairo in the course of the 11th century, he enters a sacred city. He looks up at the lofty palace of the Fatimid Caliph and remarks that it stands like a mountain. Al-Hakim is perhaps the grandest representation of the spiritual authority vested in the Imam by the Isma’ilis. His mysterious disappearance.. and the belief that perhaps he just dropped everything and walked away from his rule.. points to a remarkable personal presence. Ultimately he is a figure who we might say is not so much crazy, as someone who has truly drunk the Kool-Aid of a religious ideology.